Many initiators of a collect call (hereinafter “Calling Party No. 1”) will ask the person who accepts the collect call (hereinafter “Called Party No. 1”) to add a 3rd party (hereinafter “3rd Party) to the collect call in progress, making it a “three-way” or “conference call”. Three-way calling is usually accomplished by placing a party to a call on hold, pressing the receiver (hook switch) to get a dial tone, calling the next participant, and if the next participant answers, pressing the receiver again to connect all three persons.
The usual reason for this request, when Calling Party No. 1 has called Called Party No. 1 collect, is that Calling Party No. 1 has insufficient money to call 3rd Party directly, or 3rd Party's phone cannot accept collect calls (“blocked”). If the three-way call is established, Called Party No. 1 will continue to be billed for the call as long as the call continues. If Called Party No. 1 hangs-up the phone, it will usually terminate the connection between Calling Party No. 1 and 3rd Party.
A common scenario for this occurrence is when Calling Party No. 1 is an inmate who makes a collect call to his attorney (Called Party No. 1) who accepts the call. During the collect call, Calling Party No. 1 requests that the attorney add a family member of the inmate to the call, by making the collect call a three-way call. It is well known that penal facilities are largely filled with poor people. The families of these inmates are often poor also, and may have their phones blocked from receiving collect calls, or only have a mobile phone that cannot accept collect calls. Inmates are almost exclusively limited to making collect calls. Therefore, there remains a need for an improved channel of communication between inmates and their families, so as to ease the financial burdens normally placed on the families of inmates.
Additionally, phone service providers who service custodial facilities use equipment (“control boxes”) to detect attempted three-way calls and may disconnect any call in progress between Calling Party No. 1 and Called Party No. 1 if a three-way call attempt is detected. As an example, the control box may detect any hook switch being depressed for setting up the three-way call. This is done for security purposes, to prevent inmates from calling persons that they have been ordered by the court not to contact (e.g. victim).
Further, if a three-way call is established during a collect call, the phone service provider, and the facility it shares a commission with, loses the collect call set up fee, pay phone use charge and the most costly 1st minute of talk time. The problem with terminating all attempted three-way calls is that many times there is no legal or administrative reason to prevent Calling Party No. 1 from contacting 3rd Party, but only an economic one, namely 3rd Party has a blocked phone that cannot conveniently accept a collect call from Calling Party No. 1. However, if Called Party No. 1 was selectively allowed to add a 3rd Party to the collect call, Calling Party No. 1 would talk longer and the service provider would earn more income. Therefore, there remains a need to avoid “throwing the baby out with the bath water” and selectively allow the addition of a third party to a collect call that will support public safety goals (in those cases where Calling Party No. 1 is in custody) and allow the service provider to earn money that they would otherwise miss.